Explore Booksellers suggests reads from fiction to philosophy
Explore Booksellers in Aspen recommends a story stuck in time, a smalltown Irish saga and a rumination on "longtermism."
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Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Explore Booksellers in Aspen recommends a story stuck in time, a smalltown Irish saga and a rumination on “longtermism.”
On the Calculation of Volume (Book I)
By Solvej Balle, (Translated by Barbara J. Haveland)
New Directions
$15.95
November 2024
Purchase
From the publisher: Tara Selter, the heroine of “On the Calculation of Volume,” has involuntarily stepped off the train of time. In her world, November eighteenth repeats itself endlessly. We meet Tara on her 122nd November 18th. She no longer experiences the changes of days, weeks, months, or seasons. She finds herself in a lonely new reality without being able to explain why: How is it that she wakes every morning into the same day, knowing to the exact second when the blackbird will burst into song and when the rain will begin? Will she ever be able to share her new life with her beloved and now chronically befuddled husband? And on top of her profound isolation and confusion, Tara takes in with pain how slight a difference she makes in the world. (As she puts it: “That’s how little the activities of one person matter on the eighteenth of November.”)
Balle is hypnotic and masterful in her remixing of the endless recursive day, creating curious little folds of time and foreshadowings. Her flashbacks light up inside the text like old flash bulbs. Solvej Balle’s seven-volume novel wrings enthralling and magical new dimensions from time and its hapless, mortal subjects. As one Danish reviewer beautifully put it, Balle’s fiction consists of writing that listens.
From Clare Pearson, book buyer: Before I picked up this book, I found it remarkable that its author could write seven volumes about a woman experiencing the same November day over and over. But once I launched into the first volume, I was drawn into the eerie pull of fractured time. The novel offers expansive meditations on life, time, marriage and meaning, while also inviting the reader to take notice and appreciate the objects and minutiae that comprise a life.
This Is Happiness
By Niall Williams
Bloomsbury Publishing
$18.99
August 2021
Purchase
From the publisher: Change is coming to Faha, a small Irish parish unaltered in a thousand years. For one thing, the rain is stopping. Nobody remembers when it started; rain on the western seaboard is a condition of living. But now—just as Father Coffeey proclaims the coming of the electricity—the rain clouds are lifting. Seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe is idling in the unexpected sunshine when Christy makes his first entrance into Faha, bringing secrets for which he needs to atone. Though he can’t explain it, Noel knows right then: something has changed.
As the people of Faha anticipate the endlessly procrastinated advent of the electricity, and Noel navigates his own coming-of-age and his fallings in and out of love, Christy’s past gradually comes to light, casting a new glow on a small world. Harking back to a simpler time, “This Is Happiness” is a tender portrait of a community—its idiosyncrasies and traditions, its paradoxes and kindnesses, its failures and triumphs—and a coming-of-age tale like no other.
From Kamebry Wagner, manager: I immersed myself within this otherworldly yet deeply human story and I did not come away disappointed. Niall Williams paints an intriguing portrait of a tiny Irish village and gracefully details the very “stuff of life” with stories of the dreams of youth and memories of old age. If you’re looking to escape into the charming rhythms of village life and reflect on what really makes us human — and what really makes us happy — I’d recommend reaching for this book next.
What We Owe The Future
By William MacAskill
Basic Books
$19.99
September 2023
Purchase
From the publisher: The fate of the world – and the future – is in our hands. Now with a new foreword, “What We Owe the Future” argues for longtermism: that positively influencing the distant future is our time’s key moral priority. It’s not enough to reverse climate change or avert a pandemic. We must ensure that civilization would rebound if it collapsed; counter the end of moral progress; and prepare for a planet where the smartest beings are digital.
If we make wise choices now, our grandchildren will thrive, knowing we did everything we could to give them a world full of justice, hope and beauty.
From Ryan Moeckly, staff: We often think about the future happiness of our children, or even our children’s children. We want good lives for people beyond our own. In “What We Owe The Future” Oxford philosopher William MacAskill takes this to its distant end and considers the lives of all the people over the millennia ahead — the vast majority of people who will have ever lived. Beyond just mind-bending thought exercises, MacAskill asks real world questions about how “longtermism” changes how we might focus on and handle issues like pandemics, nuclear war, climate change and AI. MacAskill makes the case that rising global economies and advancing technology has the potential to impact the distant future — for good or bad — making the most important time to think ahead right now.
THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:
Explore Booksellers
221 E. Main St., Aspen
(970) 925-5336
As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.
